CZM Rewind: Part Two: The Armed Nonviolent Civil Rights Movement

It's the last Rewind of the recent holiday and Margaret finishes talking with Joelle Monique about how the Deacons for Defense and Justice, the NAACP, and others organized for self-defense during the Civil Rights Era.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
the podcast that it was in reruns during the holidays.
But I bet you'll still like this episode even though
I recorded a little while ago, because I think that
the way that people look back and think about the
old civil rights movement, like, wow, everything was so peaceful

(00:28):
all the time, Well it's not true. I mean, some
stuff was peaceful, and nonviolence is an important part of
political strategy, but it's certainly not the only thing that happened.
And so we're going to do a rerun about the
armed civil rights movement. I hope you enjoy it. Hello,

(00:48):
and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, the
podcast that is totally not advocating for people to do crime,
despite being a podcast almost exclusively about people who did crime.
I'm your host, Margaret Hildrey, and our guest this week
is the one and only Joel Monique. Well, how are
you doing on this day of the week that is
totally a different day of the week and not just
the same day that we recorded the previous.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
It is not still great. I'm going to guess that
it's colder because it's a week later into December, and
I will say. I'm good, still bundled up in the
sweaters and under blankets. It's just making it through the
winter time.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Excellent, excellent. And our producer Sophia is out this week
because she's on a top secret undercover mission into a
land of evil. But our audio engineer Ian is now
our producer, Ian, how are you.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
I'm doing good, Margaret. I'm just honored to be on Mike.
I'm just happy to be here. You know, it's you know,
sometimes people don't like to know how the sausage is made,
but here I am ruining the surprise. Yeay.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
And our audio engineers of course, Ian. And our theme
music was done for the show by the wonderful musician Unwoman,
which sometimes people mishear me as saying a woman, but
no it is not. I mean, yes, it is a woman,
but her name is Unwoman, and you can find her
music wherever you listen to music. I don't know whatever.

(02:12):
So this is part two of a two part series
on the armed civil rights movement of the nineteen sixty South,
and it probably won't make much sense if you don't
listen to part one. I would never tell you what
to do, dear listener, but you might want to consider
listening to part one before part two if you haven't
done that yet. Where we last left our heroes, they
were organizers, just desegregating places and registering voters. But just

(02:35):
as heroic were the armed black families that kept guard
over them as they slept and drove back clansmen with
rifles and shotguns and revolvers and apparently molotovs. And some
of these people are about to get organized, and that's
what we're gonna talk about today. You all excited, You're ready.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I'm thrilled. This is like a boom moment for me.
Let's hear about the start of organization.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, the hard parts. The first organized group of black
defenders of the civil rights movement that I was able
to find was paradoxically under the name the NAACP. Amazing that, Yeah,
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who
show up sometimes on this show, not just this episode,
but other shows. Because a ton of rad people have

(03:20):
done work with the NAACP over the years, but during
the Civil rights era they were not known as one
of the more radical organizations. They still did really not
trying to say anything negative about them here but like
you know, they're not known as like in the way
that Snick and Core were as like pushing the envelope, right,
But a chapter of them in Monroe, North Carolina went rogue. Yeah, okay,

(03:44):
go on, yeah, go on, all right, So you can
trace this back to nineteen forty six. There was a
black vet named Benny Montgomery who came home from World
War Two. He had steel plate in his skull because
he got wounded while, you know, stopping the fucking Nazis.
His white employer back in North Carolina treated him like shit.
I presume was a racist based on everything else that

(04:04):
happened and this whole thing. They got into an argument
and Benny slid his boss's throat in the resulting fight.
So I don't know, he stopped the Nazis and he
killed a racist white boss. I've got no problem with
Benny Montgomery so far.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Benny's really for me, sounds like a hero to me.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
The State of North Carolina did not find Benny to
be a hero for this particular action, and they executed him.
Of course, it should have been the end of it.
And it was like God and the way it's sometimes
written about it presents it as if it's like this,
like great justice because he didn't get lynched like the

(04:42):
Klan tried to before he was executed. They tried to
drag him out of the jail. But it's like, but
justice prevailed and he wasn't lynched. He was instead just
I mean, it's lynch by the state instead whatever.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Like, yeah, okay, people, that is a wild thing that
continues to happen today. We can look at brittany crime,
You's case where people are like, well, she did a crime,
so now she has to go to jail. And I
just if you hear people in your surf, I imagine
if you listen to this podcast, you hopefully don't have
those thoughts, but if you, you know, are surrounded by

(05:13):
people who are like that, you know, maybe just remind
them we don't necessarily need prisons. Yeah, I mean, just
imagine a world where we don't have to lock up
people for petty fucking crimes like having very small amounts
of lead. It's ridiculous, Yeah, ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Ugh, So so Benny, Yeah, hebe gets executed. This should
have been the end of it. But the clan, they're
salty that they they're also like this is grave injustice,
that the state is the one who killed him instead
of us.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Oh today, okay, so.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
They try to lynch his dead body.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
They tell the funeral home director that if they don't
hand the body over to them, they'll kill him. This
doesn't spoiler, this doesn't happen, doesn't get their way. A
bunch of black Vets met up at a barber shop
and they were like, no, we can't let that happen.
So almost forty Vets with their service rifles stood guard

(06:11):
outside the funeral home. The Klan like drove by, ready
to like go be evil, and they took one look
at the service rifles, which included Benny's own rifle, which
I think is yeah, and the Klan just noped out
of there. They were like we're gone.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Goodbye, plan horrible people. Westboro back is ass bitches.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
Like almost like every time they faced any kind of opposition,
they're like, oh wait, never mind, yeah they can fight back.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Oh sorry, yeah, suddenly uninterested, like I'm sure there's counterexamples,
but I haven't found them yet. I hope you never
find them.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
I know you never locate I know. So the local
NAACP in Monroe had started out like a lot of
NAACP chapters. It's sort of a social club for middle
class black folks. But in the nineteen fifties, the Klan
started fucking with them in Monroe, and most of the
NAACP members left the organization because they're like, oh this
this is hard and scary. But a few of them remained,

(07:16):
and two of them remained were vets, and they immediately
started recruiting the working class to the NAACP. And they
did something that no other NAACP was doing. And this
one's kind of funny. They formed a chapter of the NRA. Officially,
they like wrote the NRA, and we were like, we
would like to form a chapter called the Monroe Rifle
Club or the Blackguards as they called themselves or get

(07:37):
called what. Okay, I is the only story I've found
so far at any of my research where the NRA
affiliated people did anything cool.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
But wow, I want you to go back and look
at your history, because you're not out here defending black
people using stand their ground, you know, like the girls
who were being trafficked and then shoot their abusers. Yeah,
you know, maybe get back into your old hat. Amazing.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, No, totally. And I think there's like within the
sort of a political gun culture, there are people who
are like, oh, it's cool when people fight against depression.
You know, they're not clearly the dominant arc of the
NRA or gun culture in the United States. So you

(08:23):
now have the blackguards. In nineteen fifty seven in Monroe,
North Carolina, a kid drowned in the unsafe swimming holes
that the local black kids were forced to use because
the pool was segregated. So the vice president of the
NAACP was a guy named doctor Perry. He was one
of the kind of holdovers from when it was middle class,
but he was one of the ones he rules, and

(08:45):
he decides to stay just sit in at the white
only pool, and he organizes a bunch of kids who
go and like wait in their swim trunks and towels,
like waiting to be let into the pool. And of
course they're not let into the pool. And the fucking
bravery of those kids, it's like, it's hard to wrap
my head around how brave those kids are to go
stand there and they're swim trunks to tells this is

(09:06):
and this is three years before the sin in movement.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, that's uh, kids are I feel like kids are
aware but naive about end results, right, and so they
have this idea of like especially I think you know,
as a black kid for my generation, I can't speak
on this generation too much, but like, the idea of

(09:32):
these are your rights and you should be allowed allowed
access to them is a thing that we were taught
a lot, and so you know, we would do bold
ass things as an adult, you know, I may not do.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
And so can you tell me any of those legally stories?

Speaker 3 (09:52):
So can I tell you that story? I will say
in broad in broad strokes. Prop eight was happening, and
we were marching a lot. This is like my early
college years. You know. There may have been some verbal

(10:14):
harassments against some armed government officials as we were moving
through the streets that you know today I would not
definitely not do. But we were angry, and we were young,
and we were absolutely willing to tell people about themselves.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
And what they should do with grant.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
It's not as brave as these kids because we were surrounded.
There are thousands of us in the street. I think
it's incredibly brave to be in the fifties standing outside
of pool. Yeah, you know, without it sounds like any
weapons or and there's some trump'son towels. It's an amazing,
an amazing decision they made.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, and I don't have any record of anything bad
happening to them as a result of it. And so
the Klan they fucking hate doctor Perry. They already didn't
like him, vice president of WACP. He's black and middle
class and educated. He's throwing down with the working class.
He wasn't scared of them. And also he was Catholic,

(11:16):
and the Klan has this whole fucking thing against the Catholics.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Wow, that is a full plate of things that the
KKK is not about.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
No, no, not at all. So they the Klan got
together their show of force on October fifth, nineteen fifty seven.
They had a big old rally with a big old
cross burning, and then they drove an armed motorcade a
doctor Perry's house. They were gonna stop doctor Perry once
and for all. But doctor Perry and the Blackguards they

(11:46):
didn't scare, and they knew the Klan was coming, and
they were they were vents.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Oh shit, they've seen combat before, Okay.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
So they.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Instead of a scared middle class doctor hiding in this house,
they found sandbag fortifications with automatic weapons.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
Oh hell yeah, like in describe that they were about
that action, like they were, Yeah, they wanted all the smoke.
I love it.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
So the clan shows up and they start shooting. The
clan starts shooting at the sand bag fortifications because they're
not known for their intelligence. The Blackguard fire back, and
they intentionally fire into the ground because they they it
was a defensive gesture, right, and it was meant to
scare the clan off, and it worked. The Klan stopped

(12:39):
their raids, not just on Doctor Perry, but just in
the area. Just the Clan's just done.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
The next day, the city council bans clan motorcades because
they're like, oh, this is we can't have this, this
will go bad.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
I love this news.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
This is wonderful. That's one thing about the clan. They're
consistent there, you know, And I love it.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
I know, because I mean, what is racism but this
ideology of fear, it's this true. I want to be
in charge all the time of everyone, and everyone wants
to do what I say, and I'm afraid that that
will change.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
It's like a perceived threat to your power, your established
you know, societal standing, and that scares the shit out
of people.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
It's also its weird irrational. I want to stress that word, irrational,
fear that if there's equity, black people will try to
turn the tables and enslave white people, which is a
thing we hear them talk about all the damn time.
It's just like, I just want y'all to know, slavery
sounds hard like for both people. It's not exhausting. I'm
not trying to force people to stay or brutalize their

(13:44):
body like nobody wants this except you, or trying to
make sure we don't backslide, okay yet be black and
left alone.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, and it seems, you know, it's very obvious growing up,
I mean, having decent politics like this seems very obvious
to me. You know, I really struggle to imagine the
mindset of these like nineteen fifties white racists and like,
but yeah, they fucking you're talking. It's exactly that they're
afraid of fucking turning the tables, like whatever, fucking cowards.

(14:23):
So the local leader of the Monroe ANDAACP was a
man named Robert Williams. He later wrote a book called
Negroes with Guns and as influential on the Black Panthers,
and he wrote in nineteen fifty nine, I wish to
make it clear that I do not advocate violence for
its own sake or for the sake of reprisals against whites.
Nor am I against the passive resistance advocated by Reverend

(14:44):
Martin Luther King and others. My only difference with doctor
King is that I believe in flexibility in the freedom struggle.
Robert had a rough couple of years as a result
of his advocacy for armed defense, as like one of
the first prominent black p people, being like, we actually
are completely fine with using violence as necessary to defend ourselves.

(15:06):
The NAACCP disavowed him, like canceled the Monroe chapter over
the issue of violence. And then he was framed almost
certainly by the Feds. It's like not proven, but we've
all fucking read about co intel pro and shit. He
was framed for kidnapping a white couple and he had
to flee the country. Him and his wife had to
flee the country for about a decade. Later, he was

(15:27):
found innocent at trial and the white couple had been pressured,
presumably by the FEDS, to lie and claim that he
had kidnapped them. So that's the first organized black armed
civil rights defense organization I know about. Wasn't the last,
wasn't the largest, but it was the first that I found.
And they're cool. But I'm gonna tell you about another one,
and this one doesn't have a name. This one is

(15:48):
in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Klan was running rampant until a
group of about one hundred or so local folks organized
a nameless, militarily structured, semi secret society of Armed Community Defenders.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Okay, can we just pause right there. Here's what I
love about everything you just said. They said, don't give
it a fucking name. Don't let them be able to
search us. They can't find us if they don't know
who we are. Keep it secret, don't talk about it
in public. It was definitely fight club rules. I feel
I'm inferring. I really appreciate this approach to it. That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, yeah, you're you're you're really onto what they were
onto like they and they came from all walks of life.
They were factory workers to businessmen to gang members, which
is not the first time. There's two times I talk
about in the last episodes that I did about people
fighting the clan, about gang members versus the clan. All
of them had combat experience, all of them were picked

(16:41):
for being trustworthy and of good character. There's like this
like intense background check to join this secret society. I'm
not going to be like these are the rules that
other people should use. But you had to be married,
you couldn't be a drunk, and you had to have
a reputation for keeping your fucking mouth shut. And I
think I think this one was all men. We'll talk
about later about when this was and wasn't. And the

(17:04):
certainly the decentralized groups included a large number of women,
as like you know, a lot of the examples are
like the seven year old woman in the shotgun or whatever. Right,
But this nameless organization they avoided all press and publicity.
And what they did is they set up armed guards
a side of activist residents. Like basically if someone would
like slow down, they didn't recognize them, they'd be like

(17:25):
keep fucking driving, okay. Or sometimes they as people would
drive up to places, they would set up a checkpoint
and stop them. And if the people couldn't prove why
they were there. This is sometimes shoot at the car
or whatever. Yeah, like.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
And they would also act as bodyguards to the like
non violent. Once again, this is tied into the non
violence movement. So one white activist talked about how she
didn't even know she was being protected until later. People
just followed her at a distance, concealed carrying, ready to
fight if need be, because people were getting fucking killed
for this work. You know, before the Defenders, the Klan

(18:03):
had run patrols outside of the activist meetings. They would
just like drive by and keep track of who's there
or whatever. They got faced down one time and they
never returned. On July eighth, nineteen sixty four, a few
black teenagers went to a movie theater to test desegregation,
and over two hundred white racists were there to attack
these few black teenagers. So these secret Defenders showed up

(18:26):
with two cars full of armed men, picked the teenagers
up and drove them away from the mob. But the
klans men were waiting at the entrance to the black
neighborhood where they knew that these people would be going right,
and they opened fire on the cars. The combat, vets
opened fire right the fuck back. The klan went running
and the klan kept its head down after that.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
You know what's interesting, okay m hm. So if we
look at police shooting records, they're all over the map.
And if they're shooting against like a lot of gangsters
of all ilk like don't have they're terrible shooters because
you're not doing it frequently. But police, you know, they

(19:11):
have to do target practice or whatever, and then they're police,
so they're used to drawing their guns or whatever. But
going up against military people is an entirely different, game
changing scenario. Like you are not prepared for battle the
way that they are. And I love the idea.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Man.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
This I think is something that we're starting to talk
about and see more in our popular culture. But the
return of World War two vets is a huge impact
in the civil rights movement strictly because like, when you
understand what it is to be liberated, you actually have
helped liberate cities, you're treated with respect, and then you

(19:47):
come home and you're expected to, you know, for lack
of a better word, go back to being a nigga.
Like it's really I think empowering to then say you
know what, No, we have all of the tools and
skills because white America didn't want to go fight this war.
Like that is bananas, Like you made the problem worse.
You made the problems by not going to fight it yourself.
I love this story. This is beautiful.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, No, totally, And like it's not a coincidence to me.
I mean, like obviously, like most of the wars the
US has gotten involved in have not been good, right,
and like I know there's like a critique to be
made of the good war whatever, but like overall, it
is good that people went and stop the fucking Nazis
right where to end.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah, they had a good time to a stop.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
The current US wars are not ones that I would
be like, oh, that's cool, right, But it's still not
a coincidence that some of the people one of the
people who stopped the Colorado maybe two of the people
who stopped the Colorado spring shooters were vets.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Both of them were vets.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, and complicated feelings about all of it, but but
learning how to engage in bad situations is a skill
that is useful within our communities.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
And we've seen a lot of vets. Because I'm vocal
about over policing and the fact that the police have
been describe themselves as being in combat zones when they're like,
you are not, and if you were, this is not
how you'd be allowed to behave if you were part
of the military. Get the hell out, And I hopefully
continue to see arise in that because it should be different.

(21:22):
And you know, I don't like people playing military like
you either are or you aren't. But to be out
here in Regalia talking about how you're in an armed
force when you've never served a day in your life
is pathetic.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, totally, you're in an armed And then also just
like talking about that being like, so you're in a
war against the American people, great, awesome, cool, if you're
in a war against the American people, well, I'm one
of the American you know, like I guess I'm a
I don't even want to say that out loud, but yeah, yeah,
well this actually next one will tie into policing in

(21:54):
a little bit interesting way. The group from this era
that actually, wait, maybe time to tell you instead of
about this group from this era, maybe it's time to
tell you about capitalism and how you can engage in
it and all of us who are on this podcast
like routinely eating food. I'm just going down a limp

(22:17):
speak for you. But I like eating food every day,
delicious addicted to food, and I like eating it. And
I use money for most of my food. My gardene
skills are not quite there yet.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, they haven't made it free yet.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, I will say here's the secret, though, I get
paid whether or not you buy the things from the margaret.
They're not supposed to know. Yeah, buy it or dout?

Speaker 1 (22:49):
All right?

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Ads back from ads, Welcome back from ads. Those are
some good services. It's usually pot When I listened to
Coole Zone shows, I mostly hear ads for other podcasts,
which is actually fine by me. I like podcasts. It's
a recentably big podcast. Yeah, big fan. So we have

(23:13):
the Unnamed Defenders, and now we're going to talk about
the group from this era that did all this most
famously integrated effect. We're going to talk about the Deacons
for Defense and Justice. And it's funny too because I'm like, oh,
the most famous group about this, Like, I didn't know
about this group until very recently because I just didn't
hear much about the armed component of the nonviolent struggle

(23:33):
because when I was in school, they just taught me
about pacifism. And then when I was like getting into
you know, political radicalism or whatever, I would just mostly
hear about the Black Power era and the Black Panthers
and the stuff that comes later. But so this sort
of I didn't hear about the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Nobody talks about the organizers. It's not glamorous, it's not
scary or dangerous or cool. It's just work. But it's
in this sorry, but it's essential work. It's absolutely necessary
work for any of the other things to happen.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
No, totally, totally, Well, this one is going to get
a little scary, but it's going to work out for
most of the people in the story.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yay.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Jonesborough, Louisiana is a tiny fucking town. About four thousand
people live there in nineteen sixty, not the size of
town that most people think about very often. The soil
there was shitty, which meant that there were no plantations there,
but it was hella segregated and poor. It had a
huge clan presence, and most people, white or black, worked

(24:43):
for the paper mill or the chemical factory. There'd been
an NAACP chapter there in the forties, but Louisiana passed
a law forcing NAACP chapters i think specifically, to disclose
their memberships because they're racist. And so they changed their
name from the NAACP to the Jackson Parish Progressive Voters
League in order to not have to give all of

(25:05):
their names to.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
The fuck Sometimes we got to play these games, okay, yeah,
you and coming here being racist, I just got to
outsmart you protect by people that is nuts to be, like, hey,
can we get a hit list please?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah? Oh god, yeah, we changed our name. No more NAACP.
This other thing doesn't even mention race. It's just so
happens that everyone who cares about progress in this town.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
It's fuck the church claim accepts everybody. So perfect.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah. So in nineteen sixty four, the Voting Rights Act
had passed, making all voter registration and all that shit illegal.
But of course nothing changed on the ground in and
of itself. And so that's what you know, SNICK and
Core and all these other groups were doing was in
some ways okay. So it's like a major part of
US history, especially when it comes to race relations, is
the federal government finally fucking passing some basic human decency laws,

(25:54):
but then not actually enforcing them or being capable of
enforcing them, depending on the time and whether or not
they care different places, so people actually have to go
out and do it right against their own local governments
and their sheriffs and their shit and all that shit.
Nineteen sixty four jones Burg, Louisiana, almost at Alabama, but
jones Burg, Louisiana, the Klan is running around being fucked up.

(26:17):
They burned like four or five black churches, They burned
down a Masonic hall, they burned down a Baptist center,
and black and white core organizers came to town to work
on voter registration, and they had been invited by the
local Black Baptist church, and they were housed in a
house that got called Freedom House that the local community
fixed up for them, which is like cool and also

(26:39):
has disadvantages. Most of the time organizers would come in
and stay with a family, which gives a certain amount
of protection, but instead the community was able to be like, oh,
we have this dilapidated house, will fix up for you
and you can all live there. But unfortunately target yeah,
full of non violent people and non violent people are
alone little bit at risk because they're known to not

(27:02):
be carrying firearms. So as soon as CORR starts coming
to town, students in the area start fighting against segregation,
specifically black students. I don't think the white kids were
super woke. The Klan, of course, was like, what's that
black people voting and having a say and how their
lives are ran There's some of them are swimming in
public or reading in the library. We can't have that

(27:25):
because that's how they all talk.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Totally, No, that was a spot on.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, creation, thank you. I'm definitely not getting any acting
jobs out of this podcast. But and so they started
doing more clan shit, and they started harassing the house
and any picket lines that people were forming. And they
first they were like drive by yelling shit at the house,
and then they would drive by shooting guns in the
air at the house, and then they would just drive
by shooting the house. Right, And since core was nonviolent,

(27:52):
they weren't armed, but a few locals were, including a
guy known to history with the awesome name Chili Willie Hell. Yes,
Ernest Chili Willy Thomas. I'm actually sort of annoyed most
history books like his name is clearly Chili Willi. That's
why it's in quotes. It's the name he actually wanted
to go by. But most people, most of the history books,

(28:14):
like avoid specifically calling them that. They just call him
Ernest over or whatever.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Again, listen, if somebody has a joke nickname and it's
referred to, that gives you so much character, like depiction
and inspiration, Like you understand, like a you don't fuck
with someone named Chili Willy. Okay, that's under all circumstances,
you do not want to pick a fight, Okay.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
But it's also it's like that's what he wanted to
be called. Just call him.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
So Chili Willy and a few of his friends start
hanging out at Freedom House. They're just start sitting on
the porch or shadowing the activists as they move through town. Basically,
the deal was like, y'all could be non violent, that's great.
Us we're not nonviolent. Well defend you, to quote a
core organizer Fred Brooks, if we had a picket line.

(29:07):
These guys were standing on the corner on both sides
of the street. Wherever we went. It was like a caravan.
These guys in the pickup trucks with these high powered
rifles up in the back. White people didn't mess with us.
The defenders would come by at night and want to
know what the next day's agenda was. Different ones of
them took different patrols. We told them. They told us
we were not to leave the black community without security.

(29:30):
And to quote another organizer about the impact of the experience,
he's like writing back to the rest of cors, the
concept that we are going to go south and through
love and patience change the hearts and minds of southern
whites should be totally disregarded. So some new defenders. So
you have these defenders, right, they don't have a name.
Yet another group of folks want to do it legit

(29:52):
as best as they could. So they go to the
local as the local high school football coach. His name
is Frederick Douglas kirkpatri and he goes to the police
chief and he's like, let me set up an all
volunteer black auxiliary to the police to protect the black
community and core and the police chief went for it.
The black auxillary got no I know you see yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
You're like, my mind is melting white.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Oh it, it's gonna get messy, it's gonna get interesting.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
No, So that the black auxiliary is given an old
cop car and handcuffs. You'll be shocked to know the
close relations between the police and the black community didn't last.
Chili Willy and the original Defenders, for their part, they
are not fucking stoked about this, right. They do not
trust the black cops. They figure these black cops are
going to do the dirty work for the white cops.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
They're all blue.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah. Yeah. So that summer, we're still in nineteen sixty four,
some Core organizers get ambushed by the Klan who you
turned in the middle of the highway to trap the
Core organizers. But the Core organizers get out of it
with like sick driving skills. Hell yeah, they like floor
it and they basically like almost run a clan car

(31:06):
off the road. I think they almost run someone over.
Like they get the fuck out of there.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
That's horrifying.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
But the clans people they go and snitch them out
for their dangerous driving. The clan people go to the
cops and are like, hey, these Core organizers almost killed
us on the road. You should arrest them. So the
white chief of police tells one of the black deputies
go arrest these Corps organizers. The deputy is like, that's

(31:33):
not what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
That's not so I have to go back to my
community after this. I don't live. My mom in the
eyes like please don't ask me to do this.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, and so, you know, deputy's like, well, that's not
what I'm gonna do. So instead, the black deputies go
and provide an armed escort to help the Core organizers
get out of town away from an arrest warrant. Okay,
come on, and so but they're still like, maybe there's
something to it, maybe we can still be the Black deputies.
So then there are ordered to arrest some the Blo
teenagers who are at the swimming pool, and they refused again.

(32:04):
And then the final straw, the Klan drove through the
black part of town with the police escort, throwing out
leaflets about outside agitators because that's like been the rhetoric
that the right wing has used forever as being like
these outside agitators whatever. And Kirkpatrick is finally like, oh yeah,
and the Klan have a police escort as they're driving
through the black community throwing this out. And so the

(32:25):
deputies and Kirkpatrick are like never mind. Specifically, he told
the chief of police that if the clan convoy ever
comes back through town, quote, there was going to be
some killing going on.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
I thought it was gonna be poetic, like, I just
want to let you know, some murder will happen.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
You have to kill people, because I'm gonna make some
if this happens amazing. After this, the two groups, Kirkpatrick's
deputies and Chili Willi's defender, they feel all right with
each other now, and the deputies proved that they weren't
going to be pawns for the white power structure.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Good for you, deputies, And.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
As a shit heated up, more and more black defenders
started showing up, and the spirit of we're not going
to fucking put up with this was spreading throughout the town,
and not just the defenders. At one point, some clansmen
tried to burn across in one of the reverend's yards,
only to be scared off by the reverend's wife, who
started shooting at them with a rifle. Yeah yeah, it

(33:29):
love it. And once again, majority of these defenders were
vets World War II, in the Korean War vets, and
they skewed at older than the activists they were protecting.
They also had strict membership requirements. Everyone had to be
committed to defense only. Everyone had to be committed to
keeping a cool head about them. And then kind of famously,

(33:51):
they weren't ideological. A lot of the stuff that comes later,
for better and worse, is ideological, right in different ways.
These people people were not socialists, they were not communists,
they weren't anything as as a group. Individuals within them
were all kinds of different things, I'm sure, including conservatives,
including liberals, and their ideology, as far as I can tell,
was basically like we shouldn't let people fuck up the

(34:13):
black community and murder civil rights activists.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Well, I think also, you know, to your point, if
they're all slightly older than the people they're protecting, there's
absolutely like a generational thing of like, you know, our
grandparents were enslaved, perhaps some of their parents were enslaved.
This is liberation at a next level. And what we're

(34:37):
not going to do is allow you to kill our
young without putting up a fight first. Yeah, and I
think it's a really beautiful intergenerational play of like, Okay,
you guys have this vision for the future, you go
out and claim that we'll do our best to keep
you safe while you do that. I think that's really beautiful.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
No, that is so fucking beautiful and that's so accurate.
That's exactly what's happening here, and it like, wow, I
care about that a lot. I talk sometimes about, like
you know, in the trans community, about how like oh, well,
like I'm I'm not that old, but I'm like, you know,
I'm about forty, and I'm like, you know, do anything
to protect the like young trans kids, right, and like

(35:16):
you know who don't appreciate it, you know, like and
like I that I don't want to draw a direct
one to one struggle.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Ye, like listen as somebody who's queer, like there isn't
absolutely a direct correlation between communities that are actively being haunted, Yeah, right,
like literally hunted and and and then you know, legislated against,

(35:47):
which is an entirely different mind fuck of of how
do I just actively live my life in society without
being fucked by the government that's supposed to be protecting me.
And how we how we treat are young you know,
we want them as much as young people often can't
appreciate what's being done for them because their worldview is different, right,

(36:10):
Like they're, oh, we need to be in the streets. Oh,
we're going to be vocal. We're going to make the
change that you guys couldn't accomplish happen, Which is a
thing I hear. You know, a lot of young black activists,
or even before they're activists more more, you know, as
they're beginning their journey into activism, I'll say often they're like, well,
we're not going to be like you be like.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
Chill.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Okay, we find won a lot of battles, but with
just that, it's not done yet. Yeah, but we will
still no matter how you feel, we don't want you
to be hurt. Yeh, in the same ways we were hurt,
in the same way we saw our elders hurt. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean it's generationally, it's the only thing I think
that a lot of marginalized communities can do is do

(36:55):
their best to build a wall of protection around the
next gener coming up, so hopefully they can get a
little bit further. I think there's a direct correlation.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
No, and that that makes so much sense in it.
I think it you know, if one of the main
themes of this episode is about how two different strategies
can work together. In this case, it's non violence and
self defense. You know that they like in a similar way,
the like you carry this further, but we will stand
here and protect you as you do it, Like here

(37:25):
are all the resources that we have acquired, that we
have built up so that you can do this thing. No,
that's really I really like that. And I guess that
what Ala Baker was doing, you know, by like being
the mentor to snick without like and even if her
main advice was you all should figure out what you

(37:45):
want to do and don't listen to the charismatic leaders
who tell you that you should do what they wanted
you to do.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
I love it, Like I reminds me a lot of
what Rose Park is doing in her later years, you know,
also like being a symbol of this one very specific
and vital movement, but then also you know, actively working
behind the scenes to help support this next generation as
they continued the fight. Yeah, I mean being boots on
the ground talking to be like she she's so much

(38:12):
larger than that one moment. But again, didn't bother to
try and take up space. That wasn't that was meant
for the people and not for an individual. Yeah, it's
so selfless this week, but the people who are doing
it right and it's just incredibly impressive.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, totally. And I you know, one of the
things I struggle with on this show is that I'm like, oh,
I'm talking about cool people, but I don't believe in
like heroes. I believe in like role models, or I
believe in like respecting the work people have done, you know,
and respecting these stories. Not so that we can be like, oh, well,
I'm not as cool as that person. I'll never do anything,
but instead so that people can know like we are all.

(38:50):
You know, this person wasn't like, you know, I doubt
when Ella Baker first started, Elbaker was like, I'm the
one who's gonna change all this shit just did. But
it was in front of her, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Yeah, yeah, she's got to the work. Yeah just started.
She was like, no, this has to be different, and
it's Yeah, it'll be interesting going forward how we as
a society manage our heroes. I think, particularly with the
rise of social media, we're seeing a decline in celebrity. Yeah,
right there, we don't have you're Michael Jackson's where people

(39:26):
are fainting just passing them in the street. They're like,
oh my god, I'm in the vicinity of this person, right,
And I think celebrity is going to become to some degree.
I think I think also have popular people that were
interested in following their stories. But I think that era
of hero icon worship is we're moving past it slowly.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah. Instead, what we should be worshiping is uh, potatoes, Yeah,
potatoes and whatever. Literally whatever. The first ad you hear
once we cut to ads is should be your new God.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Awesome. I can't wait to figure out where any god is.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
I hope it's not the Highway State patrol or gold
or one of the other man.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
Meaning and evil and what you're really worshiping is your
fear of that.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Yeah, here's some ads aka your new gods. Okay, we
are back. And we were talking about how Chili Willy
and Frederick Douglass are getting together, and it was actually
this person who was ideologically not an ideologically convinced white

(40:40):
core organizer, who was very into non violence, was kind
of the one who was like, no, you all need
to sit down and actually have these meetings and figure
out what you're doing. His name is Charlie Fenton. He
spent most of his summer in jail and then he
came to Jonesborough and he was super ideologically committed to nonviolence,

(41:02):
but he he quickly realized that the two things went
very well together, that building a non violence resistance movement
in Durance Jonesborough required the work of these defenders, and
so he was like, hey, maybe you all should have
some structure. And so in November nineteen sixty four, the
two groups met up in the Masonic Hall and they
formed a protective association. The core organizer wasn't part of it. Fortunately,

(41:24):
he was like, hey, maybe I'll meet up and then
dipped out, which is good. That is what he should
have done. On January fifth, nineteen sixty five, they formally
incorporated with a name. They were the Deacons for Defense
and Justice. And what's another thing that I think is
really cool. The two founders, Chili William and Kirkpatrick. They
didn't become the leaders. The president was another one of

(41:45):
the defenders, the vice president another one of the deputies.
The founders stayed part of it, but they didn't take
control of it, and they set up a structure as
really interesting to me. There's members pay dues of two
dollars a month, which is basically pooling money for ammunition.
Everyone provided their own rifles, and they set up four
membership tiers, which wasn't like a hierarchy of command. They

(42:07):
had a command structure, but it's unrelated when talking about
you had your core group of dues paying activists, and
then a broader group of people who sometimes paid dues,
and then you had an even broader group of reinforcements
who could be called upon in time of need. And
then you had a fourth tier, which was basically like, look,
if you're like doing really good shit, you want to
call yourself a deacon. That's chill, And that seems like

(42:28):
a really smart way to run a community defense organization
that acknowledges that not everyone is going to make it
the center of their lives. Right.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
It sounds like radical acceptance, like come as you are,
Like if you want to be all in, great, if
you just kind of want to hang around and see
if that's about help, cool, We just accept you as
you are, just be about the mission.

Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah. At first it was more or less all men,
except some one or two women who were helping on
an organizational level. Slowly, more women started becoming involved, especially
as Core's influence rubbed off on it, because Core was
actually fairly actively gender integrated. And Kirkpatrick, the guy who
had been a deputy, he got fired from the high
school for starting the Deacons, which led to the deacons

(43:11):
first conflict with the authorities. Students at that school started
picketing because of his dismissal and for black control of
black schools, which stands out from the broader civil rights
movement at the time, which was much more focused on desegregation,
whereas in this case these students were focused on black autonomy.
It is a fairly major tension that was going to

(43:32):
emerge more clearly in a couple of years. But the
kids are picketing their high school and firefighters show up
ready to hose them down right because they're being fucks.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
It's the good use of the fire department, super good
use of water. Yeah, aces job everyone.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, the deacons staunch conservative conservationists. They take firing positions
and say to that, to the fire fighters. Quote, if
you turn those water hoses on those kids, there's going
to be some blood out here today.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Okay, again, just not mixing the words up, just letting
you know immediately, don't fuck around.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
It's just what will happen. And the firefighters.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Left goodbye again, we say, because they're just walking around
so ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
And the deacons, after they win this fight, they get popular.
A whole new group of people start joining the civil
rights movement, folks who hadn't been attracted to the more
middle class sensibilities of the older groups, and nor the
people who hadn't been attracted to the specifically youth nonviolent spirit.
You get the sort of like third basically the people
who are like, oh shit, okay, yeah, this is the

(44:44):
tactic that appeals to us.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
It works. I bet it was the response because you
when you hear non violence, you're like, I'm not about
to be in the streets getting my ass whopped. Like
it just does not sound like it's not appealing at
least to me as an individual anyway. I understand the
yeah behind doing it, but the peel of like and
now we're just gonna allow ourselves to be be as
a showing of like what happens to us anyway is right, God,

(45:09):
it's so brief. But then you know this idea of like,
oh no, actually you can be armed, and we helped
protect and save kids. Now those water hoses break bones,
like it's really dangerous. That's incredible. Yeah. I could definitely
see just regular community folks being like, oh, okay, we
have a system now.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, totally. And So there's another mill town in Louisiana.
It's the opposite side of Louisiana. It feels like three
hundred miles away or some shit. It's called Bogolusa, and
it was one of the worst hot beds of clan
activity in the in the country. It had the most
clansmen per capita anywhere in Louisiana, which is an impressive
state to have the most clansmen per capita. In klansmen

(45:49):
held office. They had enough power that when President lynd
And Johnson sent a special aid to go give a
talk about desegregation, he wasn't able to speak. The President's
fucking aid like. The event was shut down by burning
crosses and angry racists. They went out and passed the
clans people went out and passed handbills to every white

(46:11):
family in town saying if you show up to this meeting,
we will kill you. Where there's strong repression, there's strong resistance.
Black farmers in the area already had a very strong
They had a lot of advantages the black folks from
a strategic point of view, they had two things going
for them. The rural nearby area. The black farmers in

(46:33):
that area largely owned their own land, which made them
substantially sort of sharecropping or anything like that, so they're
much more resistant against economic repression. And then black workers
in the town were largely incorporated into a few different unions,
and therefore they had a lot of experience organizing. And
so for decades the NAACP had prevented the clan from

(46:55):
purging black voters from the roles. So that town they
invite some core activists white some white core activists to
come to town and house them in a black home.
The clan shows up at the house, but so did
armed Black Towns people. The Klan fucked off, as is
their want. The core organizers tried to drive out of town,

(47:17):
but they were followed by an angry mob and a car,
and so they took refuge in a black cafe where
the same scene repeated. Angry fucks showed up and started
trying to surround the cafe, but so did armed defenders,
and the klan fucked off again, and the basically the
organizers escorted home out of town by an armed caravan
of defenders. One of the organizers later he said, I

(47:40):
thought I was a pacifist, but then I realized I
wasn't anymore. That's not a direct quote. Sorry, I said
that in my direct quote voice, but that's my paraphrase voice.
And so Bogolusa formed the second Deacons chapter after that event.
By May twenty third, nineteen sixty five, the mayor of
bogolu So repealed all segregation mandates. And wow, yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Wow, I'm just trying to think of, like, that's such
a fast turnaround for a space that has numbers, which
I think would be, you know, a factor in the
speed in which you'd be able to desegregate a space
violence where or the threat of violence works.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
I get like stopping other people's violence in this case,
you know, because it's stopping letting their violence work. And
again it's funny because it's like, I'm not ideologically committed
to nonviolence. I actually and I find it strategically interesting,
but not It's not a strategy that I've ever personally
particularly employed. Sure, but like it's still interesting to me.

(48:48):
It's within the tool the toolbox of activist tools, you know.
But when the national director of CORE showed up in town,
I think the I think the way it down is
that the like local police were like, all right, we'll
protect you, and he was like, no, I'm good, the
Deacons will protect me.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Actually that half people are ready for that.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, thank you, Oh my god. So okay. So that's
like the either way nonviolence is relying on armed people,
and it's trying to rely on cops and like federal
troops and like the state as the armed force, right,
and so instead he's saying, no, the armed force I
trust are the Deacons for Defense and Justice. In the end,

(49:31):
after only a few years, the Deacons had twenty one
formal chapters and forty six affiliates throughout the country, But
by nineteen sixty eight they were overshadowed by the Black
Panther Party, which I'm sure we'll talk about more some
other time, and sort of a close to this era.
As the sixties wear on, tensions are growing within the

(49:52):
civil rights movement because it was it was finding itself.
It was starting to be about more than just voting
rights and desegregation. And there's I named James Meredith, and
I first wrote there was this guy. But there is
a guy. He's still alive. He's a black man with
some Choctaw heritage. He was a vet. He spent nine
years in the Air Force from nineteen fifty one to
nineteen sixty. He's actually fairly conservative, but he's doesn't like

(50:16):
white supremacy. He integrated the University of Mississippi, which did
not want to be integrated by him.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Missis Sippy still doesn't want to be No.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
I believe that this is the democratic governor who said, like,
I will die before I allowed desegregation in my state,
or something like that. I can't remember it exactly.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
You're welcome to do that, sir, I know, right.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Deacons of defense are like I volunteer. It took a
bunch of applications and a lawsuit with help from the NAACP,
and then federal intervention, and then he had to survive
a frame up on voter fraud, all kinds of shit.
They did everything they could to try and stop him.
But when he finally went to go enroll because he

(51:03):
had succeeded, these lawsuits. It took four hundred law enforcement
folks from various federal agencies and shit to protect him,
and still racists, including mostly the fucking white racist students
at this fucking university, rioted to try and prevent him
from enrolling and like fought those four hundred cops or whatever.
So he goes to the school, he graduates, he faces

(51:25):
a ton of abuse the whole time from racist students,
which is frankly most of the students. For his next degree,
for some completely understandable reason, he goes to a university
in Nigeria.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Yes, get all the way out of you're like no.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
In nineteen sixty six, he declares that he's going to
do a march against fear, and he's going to do
it without. He's going to go on a two hundred
and twenty mile march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi.
He didn't want any of the major civil rights organizations involved.
And I believe I've read two different things. One is
that he started alone and he intended to do it alone.

(52:03):
And one is that he specifically said only black men
can join me, and I think that meant black men.
It absolutely meant no white people. I'm not certain whether
he was trying to make a statement about gender, and
he's just like, I'm not trying to do this like
how other people are doing it. I'm gonna do this thing,
a march against fear. Literally the second day of the march,
a white sniper shot him. He survived.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Wow, wow, right, because he's still alive, you said, I.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Was like, no, I know, And like, after a while
in a hospital, he rejoins the march, and he didn't
trust the other civil rights organizations, but he considered himself
at war with white supremacy. So after this attack, leaders
and and or delegates from very civil rights organizations they

(52:53):
meet up in Memphis to decide what to do. Basically,
they're like, violence can't stop our movement. We can't allow
that to happen. But they were nowhere near a consensus
beyond this point. This is like it's nineteen sixty six,
and this like coalition is really starting to come apart
because they don't actually all want the same things right,
And they reach a compromise. They decide that they're going

(53:14):
to go continue this march, which is a little bit funny.
I kind of wonder what he thought about it because
like his whole thing is he didn't want these people involved.
But then again he also got s. I don't know
what he wanted about this, you know, but the civil
rights organizations they reach a compromise. Martin Luther King wanted
no guns, yes, white people. Snick wanted deacons as an
armed defense force and no white people, which fits better

(53:37):
with James Meritith's original conception of the march anyway, And
so they compromised white allies yes, deacons for defense yes.
And the split in this movement is about a ton
of things. It's about the role of white organizers, and
I think especially about white leadership and like direction. But
maybe I'm just saying that. I not one hundred cent
certain it's about the use of firearms. It's about the

(53:58):
growing disenchantment with the political process specifically, Like there's this
whole thing that I didn't even get into, where like
the Democratic Party was like, nah, we actually don't fucking
care about you. Fuck you. And also there's this question
about growing militancy. There's like this question about like what
people actually like want. Do people want a revolution? Do
they want to be accepted within mainstream society? And specifically
about the desire for desegregation versus black power, which is

(54:21):
not always a dichotomy but is like kind of presented
as one in a lot of these conversations. But both
SNICK and the SCLC and you know, these groups that
don't like each other. They finish this march, the March
Against Fear. Fifteen thousand people are on the march by
the end of the march, including ten Yeah. Yeah, it's

(54:41):
fucking cool and like, it's interesting because they had mostly
moved away from protest marches, especially the like youth for
organizers that are like, no direct action is what matters, right,
But I mean, I don't know, I think it's pretty
direct action if you're getting shot for trying to do it.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
You know, Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
And this this included ten buses of union auto workers
from Chicago came down to join the march just to
shout out that the labor movement did do some good
things at various points in the history. And along race lines,
four thousand people were registered to vote. Along the way
and where we're going to end it, the last little thing,
because it's sort of the end of this chunk. On

(55:20):
June sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, Snick's president Kuame Toure, which
is stokely Carmichael and all the history books, but he
changes name later in life, and so I'm using both
so that people know who I'm talking about. But his
name was Kwame Tore And he gets arrested for trespassing
on public property, which is a cool, interesting trick.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
Yeah, how do you do that?

Speaker 2 (55:43):
I'm not I think you just be black. And in Greenwood, Mississippi,
in nineteen sixty six, he gets held for several hours.
When he gets out, he goes back to the march,
he gets up on the podium and he gives a speech,
and he calls up a chant we want black power.
I guess called his black power speech. It was, in
his words, a call for black people in the country

(56:04):
to unite, to recognize their heritage and build a sense
of community. Quote more from him about this. When you
talk about black power, you talk about bringing this country
to its knees anytime it messes with a black man.
Any white man in this country knows about power. He
knows what white power is, and he ought to know
what black power is. And this is not the end
of the civil rights movement, but it's one of the

(56:25):
places we can point to a split, and so it's
kind of where I'm going to end it. Soon enough,
you get the Black Panthers, who were ideological eclipsing the
Deacons for Defense Snick and Core go radical as hell.
They were done with nonviolence. Core at least embraced black nationalism.
The SCLC. The NAACP in turn rejected black power, not

(56:46):
like as a as a slogan, I'm not trying to
be like whatever complicated, yeah, and going forward from there,
There's so many other cool people who did cool stuff.
But this is where we're going to leave the story.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
This was an amaze journey so many people I didn't
know about. I love learning about the people who made
the big moments possible, and especially hearing about the rural
South where shit was really help for people, and like
how did they deal with this? You know? It's like

(57:20):
and also this idea of like, we need multiple forms
of activism to reach our end goal. I think that's
what's most interesting about this because a lot of people
have issues, you know, with the NAACP at different times.
For you know, their focus was legality right first, and

(57:41):
it's also like a lot of class issues, you know,
they were recording a certain type of black person, And
I think it's interesting to hear how at the end
of the day, like all of these different divisions had
to team up and compromise on their visions in order
to move the needle. Yeah, it gives me a lot

(58:03):
of hope for where our activism is today and the
things that we've been to accomplish. A lot of times
that in fighting can seem insurmountable and like it's halting things,
but really I think it's just making the entire movement
richer totally.

Speaker 4 (58:22):
Yeah, I think it's really you know, interesting, because there's
no one right way to achieve you know, certain goals,
and you might have to borrow from different baskets, and
like Joel said, it's about the combination or the mixture
in the compromise, you know, of all these different tactics
to achieve the common goal. And sometimes you know, there

(58:44):
is infighting and disagreements, but ultimately it's about just moving
the needle forward. And I think that's really really interesting.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Yeah, Well, thanks for coming on this journey with me, Joelle.
Do you have anything that you'd like to plug here
at the.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
You know, I please come find me on the Internet.
It's where I live. I love hearing from you guys.
You can find me actual money. Get j O E
L L E M O N I q u E.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Hell yeah, Ian you got anything.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
I'll just say, listen to some cool Zone media podcasts.
Internet Hate Machine with Bridget Todd is our newest shows
now and check that out wherever you listen to your podcasts.
And yeah, that's all for me.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I'll just say that Internet Hate Machine is my favorite
way of keeping up on the Internet gossip, and it
is like not like like gossip about the Internet out
or whatever. It's really good. You should listen to it,
That's what.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
It's really good. It's super timely, especially with what's going
on in our current Internet landscape.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
So yeah, the episode where we talk about Twitter and
the Elon Musk change over if you still need to
catch up on that.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Yeah, that one's fun. What a fun time we're all facing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
The thing that I would like to plug is a
diversity of tactics and learning to accept that not everyone
is going to agree with you, but that we can
still figure some things out together. That's what I want
to shout out here at the end. YAY community all right,
see everyone next week. Goodbye, bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website foolzonemedia dot com or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
You get your podcasts.